By Her Will
by Swordoflight86
Summary: Once her heart had warmth and love. Now it contains only hate. For her friends, for not saving her from capture. For her captors, for the things they have done to her. And for herself, for not being able to stop it. Never again will she be a pawn.


By Her Will

Disclaimer: Naruto is the property of Masashi Kishimoto

Warnings: AU. EvilHinata.

Pairing: NarutoxHinata

Summary: Once her heart had warmth and love. Now it contains only hate. For her friends, for not saving her from capture. For her captors, for the things they have done to her. And for herself, for not being able to stop it. Never again will she be a pawn.

Chapter 1: The Board is Set

Naruto walked over ground devoid of undergrowth. Ground well traveled by the feet of people. No, that is incorrect. It is not the feet of many but the feet of one man that keep this spot free from the rigors of time and nature's verdant embrace. For to Uzumaki Naruto, this spot was a reminder of his failure. His booted feet crushed any greenery that had the temerity to intrude upon the sanctity of this spot. His duster caressed the ground, almost as if searching for what it's wearer had lost. _Here_, he thought, was where he had killed one of the kidnappers. There was where he had last seen her, screaming for help, as he lay falling unconscious with the bodies of three of her kidnappers dead around him. He should have gone after her as soon as he'd awoken, but he'd instead reported the incident to the Hokage. And had subsequently been denied permission to pursue. She was not, apparently, as important as Sasuke, despite the fact that they both were ninja of this village. She was alive, this he knew, though he did not know how. As with every time he was here, memories of what had happened smothered him like an onrushing wave.

"_Naruto-kun, help!" She yelled as a man in camo uniform grabbed her, and pulled her away._

"_Hinata!" Naruto ran towards her. Six more men landed between the two of them as a seventh began assisting the first in dragging Hinata away. Naruto snapped the first man's neck, then ducked a kunai slash before burying a kunai of his own into the third man's liver. Naruto drew his katana and parried a sword blow from the fourth man, deflecting it into the path of the swing of the fifth. Next, he was forced to step back to dodge a shuriken from the sixth man, just as he was forced to block yet another katana, this one from the second man. Then the sixth man threw a handful of shuriken into the melee, which suddenly multiplied into hundreds more. He yanked one of his opponents into the way of the shuriken as a shield. He threw the body out of the way just in time to catch a sword in the gut._

"_Naruto-kun! NARUTO-KUN!" Naruto saw her being dragged away, vision fading. The last thing he remembered was voices yelling._

Later he found out that Shikamaru and Shino had went after them shortly after he'd fallen unconscious. Neither of them had managed to rescue her and in fact both of them had been so badly injured in the attempt that they spent the next six months in the hospital. The three of them spent every September Twenty Eighth since in bars getting shitfaced. Not today though. Today they were going after her. This was the last day any of the three of them would be loyal ninja of Konoha. Their village had forsaken her, but leaf ninja never abandoned one of their comrades in need. He turned when he heard footsteps behind him. He looked at Shikamaru and Shino with haunted eyes, the same eyes that gazed out of their faces. Their headbands were nowhere to be seen, as they, like him, had left them, like their allegiances, behind.

"You guys ready?" He asked.

"Indeed." Shino replied.

"What a drag." Shikamaru answered.

"You guys don't have to do this, you know."

They merely looked at him.

"Right, it was stupid of me to even to suggest it."

Then they left, three ninja who had left their village, but not it's ideals, behind them in the dark past, moving forward into a much darker future.

****

This is Uzumaki Naruto: A man haunted by his past, whose footsteps are hounded by the memory of his greatest failure. A man who, for the past ten years, has been unable to move on. Now he leaves everything he loves behind him, to try and save the one thing he loves that cannot be saved.

****

Yakushi Kabuto was cold. He was wet. He was also quite certain that his captor delighted in keeping him that way, as a twisted reminder of how their positions had been switched. He was pretty certain she wanted to see how long he could go in this environment before getting sick. He had no toilet, the pipes over his head leaked constantly, and he was sure the food was allowed to spoil before it was given to him. She was far more sadistic than her predecessor, who had only been sadistic in his experimentation. Hinata, however, was sadistic as a matter of course. At least she was with him. He remembered when Orochimaru brought her here to the base, with his plan to turn her into a spy by making her hate former comrades through fostering feelings of abandonment.

"_Kabuto-kun, we have a new guest, make sure she is as comfortable as possible." Orochimaru said, with just a hint of sarcasm._

"_Of course, Orochimaru-sama, I'll see to it right away." Kabuto replied. He turned and walked out of the throne room. He made his way to the entrance where he found a enraged Hyuga Hinata fighting with her captors. She took one of them down with a palm strike to the heart before turning and pung another one in the jaw. "Hinata-chan," Kabuto began, "it would be beneficial for you to stop struggling as you'll never kill everyone in this base."_

"_You!" Hinata said, her voice full of venom, though she did stop fighting._

"_Yes, me."_

"_Naruto-kun will come rescue me." Hinata said, as if stating a fact, though to Kabuto it seemed to be she was reassuring herself._

"_It's doubtful the Hokage will allow him to. After all, with Sasuke-kun's defection and it's aftermath, I doubt they'd be willing to chance anymore injured shinobi on what could just be another concealed defection. Now please follow me to your 'room'."_

Kabuto had then led here, to this room, and they'd began working on her. It had been so promising at first. She was all sweetness and light, and not to mention naive. She believed every lie, swallowed every untruth, until she was about to break. Kabuto had known she'd felt abandoned, forsaken by her former comrades, because Karin had told him so. Then Hinata had found some heretofore hidden reserve of strength, and everything had gone to hell. Sasuke killed Orochimaru, releases Hinata who proceeds to "houseclean" prior to taking command of Otogakure no sato. And now he is here. For three years, five months, two day, twenty hours, eighteen minutes, and thirty four, thirty five seconds, he has been here, in this cell, slowly rotting.

****

This is Yakushi Kabuto: Once the right hand of one of the Legendary Sannin, now a prisoner in a cell, and in his own mind. Unable to bear the present, he lives in the past, waiting for the moment when one of his captors will make a mistake, allowing him to be free from his prison. Soon, he believes, he will be free, though what he will do with that freedom, he does not know.

****

Hyuga Hinata sits on a throne, sitting in judgement over the entire village of Otogakure no Sato. She hates this village, with all its beggars and thieves. She hates the Daimyo of Rice Field Country, who stands in the way of her plans. She finds, in fact, that hatred comes to her as easily as breathing. She knows, deep down, in that part of her that is still the old Hinata, that her hatred, the hatred that allowed her to survive the torture that Orochimaru put her through, has consumed her very being. She hates her friends, for leaving her here to become this, she hates her captors, for the things they did to her, and she hates herself most of all, for being to weak to stop it. So she will gain power, and she will use it to gain her vengeance on the world itself. For she swore to herself she would never be a pawn again.

****

This is Hyuga Hinata: Once filled with warmth and kindness, now she feels only hate. Her love for Naruto, once so strong and pure, has been destroyed by the fury of her uncompromising hatred. Yet if she tries hard enough, she can feel echoes of memories of feeling other than hate, but they are fleeting. And sometimes, when she touches the necklace underneath her robes, she can actually remember something other than the all consuming hatred that fills her. Then it passes, and the hate comes back, and she moves on to her next piece of business. Hyuga Hinata **is** hate.

****

Deep in the forests of Fire Country, three shinobi embark on a journey that will change their lives.

****

In a cold, wet cell, the door opens, and one guard steps in. He dies, and Yakushi Kabuto is free.

****

And in a room in deep in Otogakure no sato-

"You will conscript every able bodied person who could possibly have any talent as a ninja, and put them through an accelerated course." The figure told him.

"The daimyo will not approve of that, Hinata-sama." the shinobi replied, his voice trembling.

"The daimyo is a non-issue. Do it."

"Your will be done, Hinata-sama." The shinobi left as fast as his feet could carry him.

The figure chuckled darkly, almost purring. "Yes, _my_ will be done."

End Chapter 1: The Board is Set


End file.
